


A Memory of Stars

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Arguing, Astronomy, Bad Parenting, Childhood Trauma, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Flash Fic, Gaslighting, Gen, Medieval, Memory Related, Microfic, Original Character(s), Originally Posted Elsewhere, Parental Conflict, Sex Workers (Not Explicit), Siblings, Singing, Soldiers, War, absent father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-04-21 17:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22097947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: "Ah, my little trout," said her mother, cupping her daughter's cheeks. She had to reach up to do it; her eldest daughter towered over even the burliest longshoreman. "Did you know you're my favorite?"***An unusually tall girl gives up her dream of becoming an astronomer—but later rediscovers it at war.
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Kudos: 12





	1. Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> This is a version two original Twitterfics titled "Forgetting the Stars" and "Remembering the Stars", posted over at my now-deactivated personal account in December 2019. They have been given minor edits for consistency with other stories and readability on AO3. I also combined them for tonal reasons. ❤️ 
> 
> **SUGGESTED RE-READING:** Meet our friend the guard in ["The Botanist's Most Important Failure"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990349) and ["A Certain Necklace of Jade"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059523).
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

At her mother's beckoning, the eldest daughter removed herself from the telescope, put down her book of astronomy, and ducked into the cabin of the moored houseboat.

"Ah, my little trout," said her mother, cupping her daughter's cheeks. She had to reach up to do it; her eldest daughter towered over even the burliest longshoreman. "Did you know you're my favorite?"

"Don't tell the boys that." The daughter nodded towards the window. Outside on the bow, her three prepubescent brothers squabbled over the telescope and the book.

"I wouldn't. I don't want them to know the life ahead of them. Books and dust and shadows—not a touch of warmth."

"Plenty of scholars are married, I bet. Or have lovers." 

"It isn't about spouses or lovers. With their sights so faraway"—her mother pointed up—"they will never be content here. Not on soil, not on seas. Not with humankind. But you..."

"You don't know that, Ma."

"You would do best here on earth, wouldn't you, my trout?"

Her mother saw many men, and women, too, and people who were both, and people who were neither, in the rose-rooms above the pub half a mile away. She made good money. And, better: she had the respect of thousands, because she had a true talent, because she could provide. Their little family never wanted for anything. 

So the eldest daughter hated to argue back. Though she did, even as her stomach ached.

"I can't do what you do," she said. "My interest comes and...goes, mostly. I won't fake it."

"I know you can't. But there's—" 

"I am not hiring out my body as it holds a sword, either."

"But your strength, my trout. Look at you. Your father—"

"—is not here."

"—was the knight they called—"

"—the Redwood, I know! Seven feet tall, I know. I know, Ma." 

The pain in the eldest daughter's belly had grown hard and acidic. She breathed deep.

"You are real," said her mother. She grabbed a dagger hanging upon the wall, held it out in both of her palms. "You are bone and flesh. Not starstuff. You belong in this realm." 

As the eldest daughter stepped back up to the bow of the boat, her mother said, hoarsely, desperately, "You could lead an army. You could lead the royal guard! You must keep your sights down. Not on the horizon. You must!"

The boys looked up from their tussle.

"Don't get big ideas, my trout," said her mother.

With a grunt, the eldest daughter sat among the books and the telescope and her younger brothers again. She began to adjust the lens. Beyond her, the sea shone with the night.

Her mother added, "You wouldn't make it." 

A short silence, sudden like the beat of a gong, fell over the family. The boys stared at their mother, then at their sister.

"You don't—" Her mother's voice grew dim. "You don't have the wits. "

Somewhere inside the eldest daughter knew that, had always known. 

"The saints give us strength or they give us a clever mind. I don't—want you to be disappointed," her mother finished. "You're so forgetful, my trout..."

The eldest daughter, through the telescope, focused hard on the north star. Her brothers gazed down at their feet. 

Already it seemed as though the knowledge of the sky had faded from her mind. She could not identify any constellation, any cluster of light. Of course, of course.

Her mother would never lie. Her mother was a good woman.

And she, the eldest daughter—

What a terror she had been, denying the truth. She imagined taking the tests at the astronomers' guild. How could she ever score high enough to gain admission? The other students would laugh at her dullness.

Strength or a clever mind—

She had one of those, at least. 

A brother said, "Ma, she's not dumb at all. She taught us what all the words—"

Another added in a whine, "She made the math right, 'cause the book's from someplace with different numbers—"

The third brother clapped the other two on the back of the head. The eldest daughter stood, and returned to the cabin, and embraced her mother.

"You're right," said the daughter.

"Nothing about rightness," her mother whispered, kissing her cheeks and forehead. "Only truth."

"Do you really think I could be head of the royal guard?"

This idea didn't sit right with the eldest daughter, but when she thought of the stars, she grew nauseous—and would, for years to come.

"I do," her mother said, gently. She handed the dagger to her eldest. "And what a life you'll have."


	2. Remembering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The astronomer held their telescope closer, backing towards their campfire. "You would not like it. Our way of teaching is not yours. We sing—over and over until the patterns are not forgotten." 
> 
> ***
> 
> A happy ending to the chapter previous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a version two original Twitterfics titled "Forgetting the Stars" and "Remembering the Stars", posted over at my personal account in December 2019. They have been given minor edits for consistency with other stories and readability on AO3. I also combined them for tonal reasons. ❤️ 
> 
> **TIMELINE NOTE:** This takes place after the previous chapter, but before the chief guard became, well, chief guard.

The soldier—who would eventually become the chief of the royal guard in her home country—approached the astronomer. She held up her hands.

"I mean you no harm," she said, in a common pidgin. "I just—want to know what you see."

Night blanketed the battlefield. The enemy had fled; only the traveling merchants, civvies, remained. And a scholar—this astronomer—who, by their code, never took sides.

"Or," said the soldier, her heart quivering, "you could teach me, perhaps—"

The astronomer held their telescope closer, backing towards their campfire. "You would not like it. Our way of teaching is not yours. We sing—over and over until the patterns are not forgotten." 

"Hm. As it turns out," the soldier replied, "that is exactly what I'd need."

She lay a pouch of pearls—her mother's—between them. The astronomer nervously sifted the pearls through their hands, then pocketed them. They placed the telescope against the soldier's eye and, pointing above the treeline, began to sing.

The soldier sang, too.

And she remembered it all.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment or a kudos or whatever the heck if this tickled your fancy. There shall be more! ❤️
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨
> 
> **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** I wrote the first chapter of this story, and then immediately felt bad and wrote the second about an hour later. I try not to end these tales on a bummer. I like hopeful, but at least aim for bittersweet. If someone's lost, there should be a suggestion of redemption; if someone's grieving, it should be a healthy process. I spent my adolescence in the time when grimdark fantasy was big, so I'm pretty burned out on it.


End file.
